Rain for Hells Glory
by AutumnDynasty
Summary: There weren't storm clouds, it wasn't raining or even dark. But it was definatly a horror story. Dark look at the cast of Jak 2 with slight sarcasm for sterotypical horror.


Written out of sheer boredom while trying to teach some little 11-year-olds English skills. Little brats were so annoying. Ah well. I really don't like this much. There are inconsistencies everywhere in tenses, description etc. Oh yeah. There's also a an overdose of commas. Meh. I can't think like Torn at all. I really can't get in his head. That's probably a good thing....  
  
Anyway, I was meant to be helping the kids with writing horror stories and....I got annoyed. Horror isn't just murder, haunted mansions, ghosts and dark places. It isn't. So this ended up as a slightly sarcastic jab at all that. It also kept me sane.  
  
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Rain for Hell's Glory  
  
The storm clouds weren't gathering and it wasn't particularly dark. There wasn't even a cold wind or distant creak of floorboards. It was therefore, Torn decided, not a generic horror story, despite the presence of a generic hero and complementary sidekick. Despite this, he mused, the strange, violent and often traumatic events were defiantly horrific.  
  
As a once loyal member of the Krimzon Guard, he had been respected and peerless. He had had the world at his feet, answering only to the Baron himself. That was, until the 'fateful day' as Ashelin dramatically put it. Torn, in outrage of the injustice of the Baron, renounced his position and quit the Guard. He still had mixed feelings on the matter. On one hand, holding a sense of pride and conviction in his betrayal for a worthy cause, and on the other, terror, loss and regret that plagued his thoughts and dreams. To save the innocents from the horror that was life under Praxis' rule, he suffered the horror of nightmares throughout both sleeping and waking hours. Old friends turning their backs or worse; aiming their guns at his head. Hated words and guilt-ridden thoughts echoing in his head, loud but furtive. Yet he had chosen his path and, doomed as it was, he would see his horrific ordeals to the end.  
  
He couldn't claim the whole spotlight though. There were others who felt the horror more than he. Ashelin was one. The tough daughter of the Baron had never had an easy ride. Abused, beaten and downtrodden, she had learned to scrape by on her own, working hard to be the best. The Baron, it seemed, was as cruel a father as he was a ruler. When she wasn't ignored, Ashelin was insulted and otherwise harshly treated. In revenge she joined the Krimzon Guard and as the only woman she faced a rougher time than she ever had at home. Despite this however, her survival instincts and stubborn determination won though. She had survived and succeeded, yet the horror would never over. It would never be for the girl who would always be second best to an lunatic Erol, had shaky job prospects, a father who wouldn't hesitate to kill her, no real place to call home and no one to care for her in the world.  
  
Then there was Daxter, the rat, the mascot, the annoying pest. Although, Torn considered, despite his cheerful mischievous nature, he faced just as much horror. Overhearing a random conversation between the ottsel and his friend, the ex-Krimson Guard had pieced together their past.  
  
Daxter had been human once. As human as any of them, fun loving, loud and boisterous. He had cleaned Samos' hut for a job and his biggest concern had been getting Kiera to like him. Then one day the carefree days had ended abruptly. Almost drowning in Dark Eco, he became a 2ft tall orange creature; half otter and half weasel. When Jak, his only friend was captured, Daxter was left on his own. Screams are often heard when Daxter sleeps, dreaming of the drowning. Drowning in Eco, surrounded by inky purple, not knowing which way is up in the darkness with no way out. Drowning in fear and loneliness, not knowing where to go or what to do, alone in a strange and hostile city with no way out. Daxter is an escape artist, running and running, always finding an escape. In horror stories there is no way out. This is his horror; there's no way out this time.  
  
And Jak. What of him? He is horror personified; a twisted Jeckyll and Hyde who knows no inner peace. A creature that tears and rends flesh from bone and hopes from your heart. Deadly and angry, Dark Jak kills and tortures without a thought. The guilt is felt by Jak himself, who is already torn with the knowledge that Daxter's condition is his fault alone. It tears as effectively at his mind as his counterpart's claws. Wretchedness consumes him perhaps more than anyone. If that wasn't horrific, Torn didn't know what was. The uncontrollable hate caused by years of pain and humiliation at the hands of the Baron had skewed all sense of reason or restraint in the man's mind, leaving a shell. A machine whose only aim was to achieve revenge, no matter the cost. Jak's memories, the guilt, the pain and the hate have made this hero a sympathetic villain, no matter how anyone saw it. Like Frankenstein, whose creature turned upon its hateful creator out of misery and pain, so Jak turns on Praxis. Though it was easy to sympathise with him, Jak was a horror, infinitely more horrified of himself than others would ever be.  
  
Reflecting, Torn realized that everyone saw the horror. It was felt by every person, every day of their lives. The metal heads were a horror themselves, knowing only violence and fear. Praxis saw the horror his city had become, defending it from the metal heads through his twisted sense of justice. Erol, twisted, insane Erol felt the fear of losing, being inferior. The horror that losing held drove him to his death. Even the abomination Krew knew of horror...  
  
Torn was wrenched from his thoughts by the sudden clap of thunder. Walking up the hideout stairs and into the steadily increasing rain, he grimaced. The rain pounded heavily on the Hellish city, glorifying the tall palace structures on the skyline under a veil of grey-white.  
  
I could say something about the rain washing our sins away, he thought. But it doesn't. It's certainly looking more like a horror story though. 


End file.
